A few words from an old fart - WoW now and then

Community General Discussion
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Fellow travelers,

It’s been almost twenty years since I, as a teenager, created my first UD mage. The story is not unique, some of you have been there - immersed, awed and happy. Good times.

For me they lasted till the very end of Lich King, almost getting a gladiator in 3x3 bracket, season 7. Nothing too special, yet what a journey it has been.

After that, my relation with WoW was sporadic, and after Legion - I had no idea what is going on as real life took me. That was it.

Fast forward to February 2024, as now a father of three with basic package of what-would-you-expect in your late 30-s, I install retail WoW just for the sake of it. To have a look and feel what became of a great masterpiece.

Wanted to share a few thoughts, because why not. Interested to hear if you feel the same. Things that are lost in retail:

  • Sense of what is going on.
    I am basically clicking different pop-ups to teleport me here and there. No idea who I am running dungeon with. Party members don’t answer social questions, like ‘what’s up folks’. We rush it in 8-12 minutes. Then I’m teleported back.

  • Sense of items.
    Last time I’ve got into a group to run RFC, being forty-something level. The boss dropped me a cape, it was better than I currently wear. Items do not make sense anymore, they’re all the same, you can get anything from anywhere and everything fits, gives you an upgrade. It’s completely washed out - you can call it hilarious.

  • Sense of outfit.
    Now everybody are running transmogged into anything from anywhere and you have no clue if the guy besides you is strong or not. He can be naked, he can be tier17 - you have no clue. There is no more standing on the top of OG bank with Thunderfury.

  • Sense of getting stronger.
    I have missed like six or seven levels of adding talent points and didn’t feel a thing. My character is slicing though anything like butter. I’ve added the points, nothing changed. Well, something, but not considerably, I would even say cosmetic.

  • Sense of community.
    Basically people from everywhere are doing whatever with everybody, different realms, different levels, I don’t know if different factions - but wouldn’t be surprised. You don’t know ‘that guy’ from your realm who used to gank you in STV for three days in a row, hoping to meet him at the BG at max level finally to /yawn and then frag him down.

  • Sense of the world.
    Whenever I go, monsters seem to be around my strength, but weaker. They are all weak. Everything scales just to make me comfortable. Not too strong, God forbid. All the world is plain now, nothing is dangerous out there.

However, everything looks nicer, graphics are neat, you are cushioned with pillows on your every move, to die while leveling is mission impossible and you are always served with a nice shiny reward for basically pressing whatever buttons and following the quest where you’re guided from A to Z.

As a conclusion, it struck me that WoW is a completely different game now. It caters so much to the player that it’s like a mobile game you spend 20 minutes on when you’re free and waiting for boarding. Then you close it and forget about it.

Do people still bond with their characters? Is there still a sense of accomplishment? Are there guilds that are known locally, and meet for a drink? Does the world mean anything, do you travel across it at all, listening to the soundtrack?

I’m almost certain I’m underinformed on how it works now and people smarter than me are going to give advice and express opinions. Very good - more than open to it!

However, for me the journey is over, the geschtalt is closed. Thanks for it! Hope you reach it as well. And wishing all the best.

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WoW has changed. It isn’t about ‘the journey’ any more - we did that nearly 20 years ago. We’ve reached the destination and many of us (all the people I play with) are having fun at endgame.

Personally, my experience has been the opposite of yours. I was a sporadic player all those years ago. I never felt engaged. The journey that you loved felt to me like an eternal slog towards something that was forever out of reach. I kept coming back because I was convinced WoW should be fun, then stopping again because I was bored with never getting to the place I thought I was going.

Now I play daily.

People make posts similar to yours from time to time, lamenting the loss of wonder that they felt in the early years of playing WoW, and I get that. But it isn’t because WoW has changed (although it has). The wonder we experienced back then was because MMO itself was so new and exciting and amazing. We were actually getting to play as characters, running around in a vast visual world, and meet and interact with other real people. For many of us, it was like a dream come true.

That dream has got old now. It doesn’t excite us any more. No-one stays excited about a dream that came true 20 years ago. Sure, WoW has changed, but that isn’t the reason for the ‘loss of wonder’. That comes from us. We don’t feel wonder at the same things any more. You either enjoy the game as it is now, or you don’t. But there isn’t any going back. You have changed.

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Thank you, Tyssera. That’s the best explanation of how and why things have changed that I’ve seen!

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This is the thing people always forget, when they talk about how great things used to be.
Great post Tyssera, i agree with everything you said.

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Excellent post Tyssera, I couldn’t agree more.

From my point of view I love Retail. I don’t like Classic. I do understand that others prefer the old skool experience ofc.

WoW has evolved and it just got better and better (for me). They didn’t get everything right ofc. But then Classic didn’t get everything right either. Going back to Classic now is an awful experience if you like the sleek modern game.

People who like the old ways can still go and enjoy all that though. Classic has both the oldest version as Era (Vanilla) then we have Hardcore, Season of Discovery (latest Classic spin off) and the latest old expansion, currently Wrath will become Cata later this year.

I have more friends now than back then, a bigger sense of community. I socialise more, I do more variety of activities. There are times ofc I prefer to be alone and the game offers plenty to do solo too.

Funnily enough doing dungeons is not a time I feel chatty. I’m actively doing something. Unless we’re on discord and using voice chat because generally I’m busy fighting the mobs and killing the bosses etc. I have never found the forming a group, spamming a channel, waiting an age to get a group together then slowly working our way through with all the mana breaks, a fun activity. People were also pretty vile to me as a new player starting during TBC. I gave up trying to group with others. It’s similar to the worst M+ experiences of today. I loved it when the random dungeon finder was introduced. I could do so much more content.

The only levelling that excites me is the latest expansion when it’s brand new. But that has always been the case for me. It’s only exciting once, it’s kind of nice doing it a second and picking up on anything you may have missed but mostly it’s very much I’m done. You can’t get that brand new shiney feeling twice. It’s sometimes why beta testing is a curse too. However I have done every available quest in WoW even finding different quests in zones as the opposite faction.

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Pretty much. Whenever I play a new TYPE of game, it creates a special feeling like “Yup, this is a new experience”. But nowadays the market is saturated with mass produced games based on the same template.
CoD, WoW, Diablo, FIFA…

WoW still entertains me just enough for me to buy it, but I’m less and less willing to put up with the annoying parts of the game with every expansion.

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That’s always an easy thing to say.
Your own preferences don’t change that much.

If you like vanilla ice cream as a child you probably still like it as an adult.
If you like horror movie as a teenager you probably still like them as an adult.
If you like sarcasm jokes… bla bla you get it.

Same goes for video games.

I loved video games where i can immersive myself in a huge, mystical and dangerous world and i still love those many years later.
I have the same feeling when i play classic or wrath (leveling), it still feels like an adventure, where i enjoy the ingame music without watching something else on my second monitor like i do when i play retail.
Retail is not a RPG anymore for me, it’s just a multiplayer game.

The only thing that changed about me, is that i don’t have that much time like back than, not what i like.

The Game changed, not me.

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This was actually perfect but not in the way you think:-

As a child I may have loved Vanilla ice cream but I rarely choose it these days. There are other flavours I prefer as an adult.

I loved Horror as a teenager, can’t be bothered with it these days. It just does nothing for me and it rarely has a decent story. As a teen I clearly didn’t care, as an adult it’s not really something that holds my interest as much.

Humour in particular is something that evolves over time IMO.

If I were to pick up Classic WoW now (as a new player, never seen the game before), I probably wouldn’t stick at it. Compared to how gaming has evolved in general it would really fail to bait me in.

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You think you’re clever with ur post but you’re not. OP is right about everything and you’re just sitting inhaling that copium here.

Every expansion felt new and exciting back in the days, the adventure feeling was still there. The game now has been changed to a mobile lobby game. Its not us that has change, its the game. People are still craving that old MMO feeling, thats why why a lot of people are playing Classic. And you act like there were no older people that played back in the day. Let me tell you, the game didnt only consist of teenagers back then and the older people loved it.

Let me also guess. You say that we have changed and played the game for too long but you’re also one of those that are agianst A new " WoW 2 " because " you’re too invested " now in the game.

I just cant stand retail delusional players lmao.

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I agree with this 100%. I’m still the person who was excited at the prospect of exploring a vast online world with REAL PEOPLE for the first time. But I did that 20 years ago. I can’t get excited about doing it for the first time any more because the first time passed long ago.

Hypothetically… if WoW evolved into a full VR game, if they developed the ability to plug your central nervous system directly into the internet, if I could run around Azeroth as if I was really there… now, that would be worth getting excited about.

The excitement of looking at it on a screen? That’s gone, and I can never get it back.

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Try out Classic, especially with Cata upcoming you can experience what that was like rather than the full speed ahead to retail, which few people stick with as new/returning players. It is a jumbled mess if you don’t know everything already.

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So you’re saying games dont excite you anymore. Mabye its time to admit that retail has become dog… . Because there’s tons of older people that still gets excited playing GOOD Games.

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I didn’t think this post would be up long before the people who get their joy in life from bashing retail arrived.

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But you just said that it doesnt excite you anymore, i dont get it.

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No, I said I’m not excited by “the prospect of exploring a vast online world with REAL PEOPLE for the first time” any more. Because I’ve done that.

There are other things in the game that excite me now.

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“The excitement of looking at it on a screen? That’s gone, and I can never get it back”

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Please try actually reading whole posts instead of taking single sentences out of context and twisting them to try to claim people said things they didn’t.

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Sure, you dont get excited exploring in games anymore. But you know, there’s other people that still does that, and they dont get that from retail as i said along with the other arguments OP have mentioned. Its not just about exploring. Like i said, the game has become a mobile lobby game.

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And others who play retail still enjoy the exploration they get with each new expansion. Others have NEVER cared about exploration, story etc etc and only care about end game. That is not new, that has also always been that way.

If you like Classic great!!! Enjoy it but stop bashing Retail players for actually enjoying the game they play.

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Well maybe you really changed or maybe they aren’t good games around to get that feeling for you.
Just because “you changed” fits you and Punyelf for example, it doesn’t mean every other human ticks the same.

It’s just a weird argument for me to say to a person that you don’t know. :smiley:

Same for me, just with retail. I stick around because i have the illusion it maybe get’s better. But would i start with WoW today i would quit very quick.